"Shrewd" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so far as it is set in the time of Haraldr the Hard-ruler, King of Norway (1046-66), and Sveinn lfsson, King of Denmark (1047-76), when the two countries were at war (c. 1062- 64). Both monarchs are depicted as generous, magnanimous men, but Audunn was shrewd enough to see which would give the greater reward for his precious bear. For all his generosity, King Haraldr was known to be ruthless and grasping. What the writer had in mind may have been a character-comparison ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... a curious look that almost expressed amusement lurking in his shrewd, pale eyes, Chauvelin handed the momentous document ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... to hold the post by letters patent. For Clarke was presumed to know and cure the literary ailments; but Quain was the genial guide, philosopher and friend, always one of themselves, and indeed a literateur himself. Who will forget his quaint little figure, shrewd face, the native accent, never lost; and his "Ah me dear fellow, shure what can I do?" His red-wheeled carriage, generally well horsed, was familiar to us all, and recognisable. How he maintained this ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... the shipowner's position was painfully simple. Being a daring yet shrewd financier, he perceived in the troubled condition of the Far East a magnificent opportunity to consolidate the trading influence of his company. He negotiated two big loans, one, of a semi-private nature, ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... shrewd eyes sat down at the table, on which he first placed some money. Then he said in a ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... this tenderness in the heart of the tamer, he thought of Samson and Delilah, and wondered if something of the kind could not be done with natural comeliness instead of a pair of scissors. Guided by instinct, Rounders, who was a shrewd fellow, as has already been said, made his court to Mlle. La Sauteuse, known in private life as Sally Stubbs. There were conventional barriers between a keeper and a rider, but Rounders by tact and good looks got over ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... the Irish, but lived on his capacity for exciting their enthusiasm." Thereupon another expresses great contempt for the Irish who could be so taken in. Nevertheless, the capability of a disinterested enthusiasm is, on the whole, a nobler property of a human being than a shrewd self-interest. I like the Irish ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... her sovereign dignity had been trifled with, and that her reputation demanded the return of Prentiss to Congress. Crowds followed him from place to place, making a gala time of weeks together. Among the shrewd worldlings who take advantage of such times "to coin money," was the proprietor of a traveling menagerie, and he soon found out that the multitude followed Prentiss. Getting the list of that remarkable man's "appointments," he filled up his own, and it was soon noticed ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... without malice—with, instead, a shrewd, kind philosophy, a sad, clear-visioned impulse of pity mixed with his wonder. So that was the way a man was caught stumbling between the meshes, blinded, dulled, unconsciously maimed of honor, while ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... twenty-five thousand bales of cotton, and in the forts one hundred and fifty large, heavy sea-coast guns: although afterward, on a more careful count, there proved to be more than two hundred and fifty sea-coast or siege guns, and thirty-one thousand bales of cotton. At that interview Mr. Browne, who was a shrewd, clever Yankee, told me that a vessel was on the point of starting for Old Point Comfort, and, if she had good weather off Cape Hatteras, would reach Fortress Monroe by Christmas-day, and he suggested that I might make it the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... them once," I reminded him. "They know how we abandoned the refugee Hurons at Quebec, and they hold our word lightly. It shames us to say this, but we must see matters as they are. No, the Ottawas do not trust us, but they trust the English less. It is a choice of evils. But they are shrewd enough to see that their greatest peril lies in a truce between ourselves and the English. Then they would indeed be between two stools. Now, they see that there are ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the bell. A servant appeared. "Send Toby here," he said. A moment afterward a man made his appearance, with an anxious restless look, shrewd expression of the mouth, with short arms, and his back somewhat bent. Aramis fixed a penetrating look ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... surpass the sublime absorption in which the gaunt old man, with arm uplifted, described this stage of affairs, till he ended in a shrewd chuckle, worthy of ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Its a shrewd fellow indeed. I wonder these schollers stay so long; they appointed to be here presently that we might try them: ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp
... incorrigible belief that all the world took as much interest in himself and all that appealed to him as he did himself, the readiness with which he adapted himself to all sorts of men and of circumstances, his credulity in matters of faith and his shrewd common sense in things of the world, his wit and lively fancy, his eloquence of tongue and pen, his acute rather than accurate observation, his scholarship elegant rather than profound, are all characteristic ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... She had shrewd gray eyes, however, and rather heavy brows. Nancy thought at once that no girl would undertake to take advantage of Madame Schakael, despite her diminutive size. Those eyes could see right through shams, ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... who had joined Pitt's ministry in 1794, among whom Lords Spencer and Fitzwilliam and above all Windham call for special notice. Windham's powerful and comprehensive speech contained more than one shrewd forecast of the future. For once, Pitt and Fox supported the same measure, and Pitt, dwelling on security as our grand object in the war, specially deprecated any attempt on the part of Great Britain "to settle the affairs of the continent". Fox, in advocating peace, fiercely ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... those vehicles."—Spectator, No. 533. "Watch over yourself, and let nothing throw you off from your guard."—District School, p. 54. "The windows broken, the door off from the hinges, the roof open and leaky."—Ib., p. 71. "He was always a shrewd observer of men, in and out of power."—Knapp's Life of Burr, p. viii. "Who had never been broken in to the experience of sea voyages."—Timothy Flint. "And there came a fire out from before ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... doing things," which had been the butt of her shrewd old father, had brought upon Anne a customary air of half-readiness, so that going in suddenly, she might be found with her bonnet on and her handkerchief on the table, but one perceived she was still ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... thus punished, how much more dreadful must it have seemed to deal with the embryonic body still enclosed in the womb, which the Creator himself had decently veiled from the curiosity of the scientist! The Christian Church, then putting many thousands to death for unbelief, had a shrewd presentiment of the menace that science contained against its authority. It was powerful enough to see that its rival ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... Charles Baskerville, whose sudden and tragic death some three months ago created so much excitement in Devonshire. I may say that I was his personal friend as well as his medical attendant. He was a strong-minded man, sir, shrewd, practical, and as unimaginative as I am myself. Yet he took this document very seriously, and his mind was prepared for just such an end as did ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... good man because of some distrustful words he had once addressed to herself. She had lived to a great age, and was expressing to her clergyman her desire that God would take her away: she had been waiting a long time. The clergyman—a very shrewd as well as devout man, and not without a touch of humour, said: 'Perhaps God doesn't mean to let you die till you've forgiven Mr—-.' She was as if struck with a flash of thought, sat silent during the rest of his visit, and when the clergyman called ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... perplexity. At last Buzerjmihr hastened to the presence of Naushirawan and said: "O, King of victorious destiny, I have carefully examined this board and these pieces, and at length by your Majesty's good fortune, I have succeeded in discovering the nature of the game. It is a most shrewd and faithful representation of a battle field, which it is proper your Majesty should inspect in the first place. In the mean time let the Indian Ambassador be summoned into the royal presence together with the more distinguished among his retinue, also a few of ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... knew nothing of agricultural operations. Of stock he was equally ignorant, and of the comparative goodness or badness of soil he was, of course, no judge. Such a man, in the choice of a farm, was sure to be shaved by the shrewd Yankee proprietor, and my poor friend ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... watchful glances here and there as though to assure himself that nothing was being stolen. Yet in spite of this natural distrust, he exchanged handshakes with each guest, greeted some with a smile sagacious and humble, others with a patronizing air, and still others with a certain shrewd look that seemed to say, "I know! You didn't come on my account, you came for ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... marked by the same feature of an intense concentration upon the purely commercial aspect. While the English and (still more) the French adventurers made use of the lesser West Indian islands, unoccupied by Spain, as bases for piratical attacks upon the Spanish trade, the Dutch, with a shrewd instinct, early deserted this purely destructive game for the more lucrative business of carrying on a smuggling trade with the Spanish mainland; and the islands which they acquired (such as Curayoa) were, unlike the French and English ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... consumed—emergency stocks of tinned goods are in reserve—are as cheap as water and fuel. Our unsullied appetites demand few condiments. Why olives, when if need be—and the need has not yet manifested itself—as shrewd a relish and as cleansing a flavour is to be obtained from the pale yellow flowers of the male papaw, steeped in brine—a decoration and a zest combined? Our mango chutney etherealises our occasional salted goat-mutton—and we know that the chutney is ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... of boys may be very shrewd, but it often happens that their parents are a good deal shrewder, a fact which my young readers will ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... funds, and to hasten the preparation for the attack on the island of Tahitou. But days passed and no reply came. In the agony of uncertainty he decided to approach Le Chevalier, whom he only knew by reputation as being a shrewd and resolute man. The meeting took place at Trevieres towards the middle of April, 1807. Le Chevalier brought one of his aides-de-camp with him, ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... is full of curious contrasts. Like the French fabulist, La Fontaine, he was a child all his life, and often a spoiled child; yet he joined to childlike simplicity no small share of worldly wisdom. Constant travel made him a shrewd observer of detail, but his self-absorption kept him from sympathy with the broad ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a little, withered man, passing around the chair and facing the old woman with an humble, deprecating air. He was clothed in black, and his smooth-shaven, deeply lined face was pleasant of expression and not without power and shrewd intelligence. The eyes, however, were concealed by heavy-rimmed spectacles, and his manner was somewhat shy and reserved. However, he did not hesitate to speak frankly to his old friend, nor minded in the least if he aroused ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... they made wine; they often paid in kind for any services that neighbours did for them; and with the food they could grow, and the firing they could still obtain from the woods and heath, their living was half provided for. The one of them I knew best was not the most typical. Shrewd old man that he was, he had adapted himself so far as suited him to a more commercial economy, and had grown suspicious and avaricious; yet if he could have been translated suddenly back into the eighteenth ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... It was a shrewd guess, and he could not help thinking afterwards that it was no wonder that so little success attended the efforts of the revenue cutter's crew to trace cargoes which had been landed when the smugglers had ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... philosopher's wise rules of conduct, as anything else. But on closer inspection, Septimius, in his unsophisticated consideration of this matter, was not so well satisfied. True, everything that was said seemed not discordant with the rules of social morality; not unwise: it was shrewd, sagacious; it did not appear to infringe upon the rights of mankind; but there was something left out, something unsatisfactory,—what was it? There was certainly a cold spell in the document; a magic, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Then the shrewd Mrs. Munn had noticed that lately the doctor seemed to be absent-minded. Indeed, he was very much worried over a problem of his own that had nothing to do with his patients. The question was, what had he done to offend Miss Cameron? Why she should have suddenly changed from ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... brief rest, they mounted and again took up the trail, soon leaving behind their halting-place, which the boys named Lake Christopher, much to the vain little darky's chagrin. He had a shrewd suspicion that he would not hear the last of his fright for many ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... by all his friends to have been the best man who ever lived, be the second-best who he might, had predeceased the poet; and it should be remembered, before we take upon ourselves the task of judging a man we never saw, that Dr. Arbuthnot, who was as shrewd as he was good, had for Pope that warm personal affection we too rarely notice nowadays between men of mature years. Swift said of Arbuthnot: 'Oh! if the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it I would ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... did not belong to the lowest of the people. Granger was a clever workman. He was seldom out of employment; for although he drank away his earnings, and gave no thought whatever to the comfort of his wife and children, he was sober and steady by day. He had a clever, shrewd head, as yet unaffected by drink, and he did the work allotted to him in a superior manner ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... it is hardly for the credit of the house that its representative conveyance should drag along as dejectedly as a street-vendor's donkey-cart?" What the bishop's reply was "the deponent sayeth not," but we may infer that this shrewd woman was at least as capable of controlling a wide meshwork of business details as he was of managing his diocese. Now, there are many such women in convents, for the religious life leads not, as people think, to a renunciation of your own self-dependence, but on the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... market for the dairyman and the fruit-grower. In its saving of what Mr. Oscar T. Crosby has called "man-hours" the third-rail system is beginning to oust steam as a motive power from trunk-lines. Already shrewd railroad managers are granting partnerships to the electricians who might otherwise encroach upon their dividends. A service at first restricted to passengers has now extended itself to the carriage of letters and parcels, and begins to reach out for common freight. We may ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... had in many ways found stumbling-blocks in the first foster-children of the excellent Jedediah. The very pious and learned, if not exactly humorous or shrewd, Dr. M'Crie, fell foul of the picture of the Covenanters given in Old Mortality. No one who knows the documents is likely to agree with him now, and from hardly any point of view but his could ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... are often sensible, though slow and in this world, plain plodding common sense is very likely in the long run to beat erratic brilliancy. The tortoise passes the hare. I owe an apology to Lord Campbell for even naming him on the same page on which stands the name of dunce: for assuredly in shrewd, massive sense, as well as in kindness of manner, the natural outflow of a kind and good heart, no judge ever surpassed him. But I may fairly point to his career of unexampled success as an instance ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... formed of Wiggins is that he is altogether too shrewd and deep a man to undertake any thing without seeing ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... of such a person is worth notice. That which is spontaneous usually has shrewd reason behind it. When counsel is deliberately sought, it may catch the consultant unaware, and in lieu of saying that which is well-considered, he may offer a half-baked opinion, rather than be disappointing. But when another person having one's trust, says: "Your ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Sweyn, Olaf did not find his task so easy, since Sweyn fought for his rights in a naval battle in which he had forty-five ships and three thousand men, while Olaf had less than half that number of men and ships. Olaf won the battle by a shrewd stratagem. He told his men to act at first only on the defensive, holding back their weapons until the enemy had thrown ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... man of the flowing grey beard once more began to stroke it, first with one hand, then with the other, and, puckering his eyes, which sparkled with a shrewd smile, for he was pleased with his own words, watched for ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... keen and shrewd; faithful and persevering in following out a good purpose, fell in tracking an evil one. They are not emotional; they are not easily made into either friends or enemies; but once lovers or haters, it is difficult to change their feeling. They ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... finding its leader in a man of unfailing political intuition, and master as well of the political mechanism of the country, a man sceptical of all high-sounding words, impatient of complicated concepts, ironical, cold, hard-headed, practical—what Mazzini would have called a "shrewd materialist." In the persons, indeed, of Mazzini and Giolitti, we may find a picture of the two aspects of pre-war Italy, of that irreconcilable duality which paralyzed the vitality of the country and which the Great ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... Gridley, and now the shrewd gray eyes under the brim of the soft-rolled felt hat ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Ithuel was too shrewd to answer. He fully understood the reason why he escaped punishment, and it increased his hopes of eventually escaping from the service itself. Still he gagged a little at the idea of passing for one who peached—or for a "State's-evidence," as he called it; that character involving more of sin. ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... certain new arrangements, consequent on a change in the proprietary, rendered his services unnecessary. A letter of Allan Cunningham, congratulating him on his appointment as a newspaper editor, is worthy of quotation, from its shrewd and sagacious counsels:— ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the late Chapeloud and the vicar,—one was a shrewd and clever egoist, the other a simple-minded and clumsy one. When the canon went to board with Mademoiselle Gamard he knew exactly how to judge of his landlady's character. The confessional had taught him to understand the bitterness that the sense of being kept outside the social ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... worst of all—a complete Stoppage; Men squabbling, Women crying, and much good Daylight wasted. Howbeit, Ned desired me to keep my Mouth shut, my Eyes open, and to trust to his good Care; and, by Dint of some shrewd Pilotage, weathered the Strait; after which, our old Horse, whose Paces, to do him Justice, proved very easie, took longer Steps than anie other on the Road, by which Means we soon got quit of the Throng; onlie, we continuallie gained on fresh Parties,—some dreadfully overloaded, some ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... balls many of the younger couples go to the Louisiane and Antoine's, to continue the dance, and as my room at Antoine's was directly over one of the dancing rooms of the establishment, I might make a shrewd guess as to how long they stayed up, after my companion ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... heard—not only money, but pearls, diamonds, shawls, and furniture, and consequently she could not be considered a bad match. In brief, it seemed to the doctor that the prince's choice, far from being a sign of foolishness, denoted, on the contrary, a shrewd, calculating, and practical mind. Lebedeff had been much struck by this point of view, and he terminated his confession by assuring the prince that he was ready, if need be, to shed his very life's blood ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to the court house Tish's lips were moving, and I knew she was rehearsing what she meant to say. I think that even then her shrewd and active mind had some foreboding of what was to come, for she called ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... American, a native of New Hampshire, who, after a roving life in the West, at last, when past fifty, became a Shaker, and after eleven years among that people, came to Zoar twenty-eight years ago, and has lived here ever since. The old fellow showed the shrewd intelligence of the Yankee, asking me whether we New-Yorkers were likely after all to beat the Tammany Ring; and declaring his belief that the Roman Catholics were the worst enemies of the United States. He appeared to be, what ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... night of his life was crowded with curious, sad and ridiculous incidents; had he let them linger long in his mind his hand and temperament would have suffered a loss of accumulative skill. That would have spelled ruin, and this particular waiter, like so many of his flabby-faced brothers, was a shrewd tradesman—in the commodities of his discreetly elastic memory—and the even more valuable asset, ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... household to new quarters; or else some old fox-hunter, jealous of the preservation of his game, and getting word of the intended destruction of the litter, had gone at dusk the night before, and made some disturbance about the den, perhaps flashed some powder in its mouth,—a hint which the shrewd animal ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... cases owned by foreigners, principally of Italian, German, Spanish, American and Cuban citizenship, and now also including numerous Syrian firms. A majority of those classed as Americans are natives of Porto Rico. A number of these merchants arrived in Santo Domingo as poor men and by hard work and shrewd investment built up respectable firms. They carefully preserved their foreign nationality as a valuable asset which protected them from undue interference on the part of the government. One of the most prominent ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... large bird. His body was black as coal; his breast was white; and his wings and tail shaded off into a dark green. His bill was long and very strong. He had a shrewd, knowing look. As he was quite tame, he must have been ...
— The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... simply the apparently legitimate result of principle and experience, are by no means unsupported by authority. They are the same results arrived at from the reflections of the most unprejudiced of observers. A shrewd Northern gentleman, who has more recently and thoroughly than any other writer travelled through the Southern States, in the final summary of his observations thus covers all the positions here taken. "My conclusion," says Mr. Olmsted, "is this,—that there is no physical ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... first grounded his claims to public support. Chance threw the man in our way a short time since. We were, in the first instance, attracted by his prepossessing impudence at the election; we were not surprised, on further acquaintance, to find him a shrewd, knowing fellow, with no inconsiderable power of observation; and, after conversing with him a little, were somewhat struck (as we dare say our readers have frequently been in other cases) with the power some men seem to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... to the station to meet the Minister of Marine, Admiral de Saint Vilquier's shrewd, practical mind began to deal with the difficult problem which was now added to his other cares. It was simplified in view of the fact—the awful fact—that according to his private information it ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... at the battle of Friedland (June 4, 1808) also favored the advance of the Jews. As the short, but troublous, reign of Paul and his wars with Turkey, Persia, Prussia, Poland, and Sweden had impoverished the country and depleted the treasury, the shrewd Alexander was not averse from appealing to Jews for help. Of course, as in many more enlightened countries and in more modern times, most of the privileges were merely paper privileges. Few of them ever went into effect. The noble intentions of the ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... slow in study, he was quick and shrewd in the observation of actual life. This was apparent in his daily converse; and it may also be continually traced in his Diary, where, describing those with whom he became acquainted in his numerous travels, he seizes, on ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... room a middle-aged man, tall, erect, well-knit in frame, with a thin, Yankeeish face, deeply browned, and shrewd hazel eyes. He bowed to nobody, but stood straight, looking like an Indian in his clothes ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Wyatt were allowed an increasing amount of liberty, but they were held nevertheless within a ring through which they could not break; Paul was shrewd enough to perceive it, and for the present he made no effort, thinking it a wise thing to appear contented with his situation, or at least to be making the best of it. Braxton Wyatt commended his ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Englishmen, and the shrewd insular manufacturer has been quick to see the opportunities for advancement that lie in this ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... more uncomfortable, especially as my father's eyes were sternly bent upon me. He hated lies, and half truths still more, and I could see that he was dimly suspecting me of a complicity in Joe Punchard's action to which I had not confessed. But Captain Galsworthy was a shrewd old man, and he saw at ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... I can, By a true story; lend an ear, 'Tis worth a trifler's time to hear. Tiberius Caesar, in his way To Naples, on a certain day Came to his own Misenian seat, (Of old Lucullus's retreat,) Which from the mountain top surveys Two seas, by looking different ways. Here a shrewd slave began to cringe With dapper coat and sash of fringe, And, as his master walk'd between The trees upon the tufted green, Finding the weather very hot, Officiates with his wat'ring-pot; And still attending through the glade, Is ostentatious of his ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... considerable property. "All his wealth came by her," swore the charwoman Joan Horton. This, however, simply means that Henslowe obtained his original capital by his marriage; for, although very illiterate, he was shrewd in handling money, and he quickly amassed "his wealth" through innumerable ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... sister-in-law a pale, puffy face in which two little dark eyes twinkled with a shrewd, gross humour. Nothing could possibly have pleased Dick Ransome more than an exhibition of indignant virtue, as achieved by Sarah. He knew a great deal more about Sarah than Mrs. Ransome knew, or than Sarah knew herself. To Dick Ransome's mind, thus illumined by ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... boy," he said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It's no use to boast of anything until it's done, nor then, either, for ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... whole, though making haste to be rich was denounced as a dangerous and ruinous temptation in St. Paul's times, that was not the slightest reason why it should be so now. All these concessions were made with a freedom which caused the good banker to suspect at times that his shrewd nephew was laughing at him in his sleeve, but he could not but subscribe to them for the sake of consistency; though as a staunch Protestant, it puzzled him a little at times to find it necessary to justify himself by getting his 'infidel' nephew ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... she shrewdly guessed, without the assistance of this family conviction, that all Jesuits, whatever they might otherwise be, were also royalists. And, as Inspector Loup was a part of the existing government, he must be a republican,—which was not so shrewd as it was logical; therefore that if Sister Agnes was suspected of being friendly to Inspector Loup, the good sister was a republican and naturally the political enemy of the managers of Le Bon Pasteur. Whatever Sister Agnes ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... sure that, in spite of Rebecca's simplicity and activity, and gentleness and untiring good humour, the shrewd old London lady, upon whom these treasures of friendship were lavished, had not a lurking suspicion all the while of her affectionate nurse and friend. It must have often crossed Miss Crawley's mind that nobody does anything for nothing. If she measured her own feeling ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a moment. He was thrown off guard by Strong's shrewd observation. "They are also being held for abduction of the professor," said ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... stupefied to see the second man who rose and advanced toward me with a shrewd smile. For it ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... to the Vice-Chancellor, delivering him a palmer with a rod, which the Vice-Chancellor shall give to the said Master in Grammar, and so create him Master. Then shall the Bedel purvey for every Master in Grammar a shrewd boy, whom the Master in Grammar shall beat openly in the Schools, and he shall give the boy a groat for his labour, and another groat to him that provideth the rod and the palmer. And thus endeth the Act in that faculty.' It may be added that ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... pack-horses, their curious pack-saddles, and their bales of merchandise. Taking service with them, he was soon helping to drive a pack-train along one of the narrow trails that crossed the lonely pine wilderness. To strong, coarse spirits, that were both shrewd and daring, and willing to balance the great risks incident to their mode of life against its great gains, the business was most alluring. Young Lachlan rose rapidly, and soon became one of the richest and most influential traders ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... bein' shrewd and careful and always lookin' out for number one. 'Number one' was his hobby. I gathered that the heft of his spare change had come from dickers in ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... My mother, a shrewd little woman, who had had a good deal to do since my father died, smiled at the corners of her mouth as she looked the would-be lodger ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... busy even to the last with caretaking of childhood and the rites of hospitality; grandmothers whom their sons and even their sons-in-law revered for some quality of gentleness and sympathy found useful in family emergencies; grandmothers whose shrewd wisdom of experience and fine gift of understanding made them invaluable members of the family circle. Folk-lore and ancient song ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... is a miserable creature, but his testimony is but a link in the chain of evidences I have of Buchanan's being the author of this infamous story. It was artfully concocted and maliciously circulated. He was too shrewd to commit himself, and employed this creature to go to Jackson, who lent a willing ear to it; and he communicated it to Creemer. Yet it was settled upon him by Jackson. Beverly told Jackson he was sent by Buchanan, and now the world has the ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... duty to "make a note" of sundry young members of his flock who had met for a drive and a supper, with a dance fringed upon the outskirts. The fame thereof being noised abroad, a sturdy old farmer, with a good deal of shrewd sense and mother-wit in his brains, and a fine, indirect way of hitting the nail on the head with a side-stroke, was questioned in a neighboring village as to the facts of the case. "Yes," he said, surlily, "the young folks had a party, and got ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Mind, Will, and Understanding as the three properties of the soul, which he means to assail and corrupt. He then goes out, and presently returns, succeeds in the attempt, and makes an exulting speech, at the close of which "he taketh a shrewd boy with him, and goeth his way crying"; probably snatching up a boy from the audience,—an incident designed to "bring down the house." Lucifer having gone out, his three victims appear in gay apparel; they dismiss ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Scylla of calling everything by one name, and recognising no individual existences of any kind, by falling into the Charybdis of having a name for everything, or by some piece of intellectual sharp practice like that of the shrewd but unprincipled Ulysses. If we were consistent honourable gentlemen, into Charybdis or on to Scylla we should go like lambs; every subterfuge by the help of which we escape our difficulty is but an arbitrary high-handed act of classification that turns a deaf ear to everything ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... much of her attention. You cannot open one of her books at hazard without being struck with some shrewd remark, that tells how far-reaching is her observation; as in this, on the playgrounds of children's hospitals: "A large garden-ground, laid out in sward and grass hillocks, and such ways as children like ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... stood a noble pile, Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed. - On burgher, squire, and clown It smiled the long street down for ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... in the country two brothers, sons of a poor man, who declared themselves willing to undertake the hazardous enterprise; the elder, who was crafty and shrewd, out of pride; the younger, who was innocent and simple, from a kind heart. The King said, "In order that you may be the more sure of finding the beast, you must go into the forest from opposite sides." So the elder went in on the west side, and the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... hall, hung about with pikes, guns, and bows, With old swords and bucklers, that had borne many shrewd blows, And an old frieze coat, to cover his worship's trunk-hose, And a cup of old sherry, to comfort his copper nose: Like an ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... manufactured philosophy. Artistically and temperamentally he was a Greek—a tired Greek. He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in token that he, too, had passed through the long sickness that follows upon the ardent search for truth; that he too had emerged, too experienced, too shrewd, too profound, ever again to be afflicted by the madness of youths in their love of truth. "'To worship appearance,'" he often quoted; "'to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance!'" This particular excerpt he always concluded ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... proved to be a young German with a round, ruddy face, which was so innocent of guile as to be out of harmony with the shrewd, piercing black eyes looking out of it. The Englishman eyed him inquisitively, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... sxultro. Shoulder-blade skapolo. Shout kriegi. Shove pusxi. Shovel sxoveli. Shovel sxovelilo. Show montri. Show parado. Show in enigi. Show goods elmeti. Shower pluveto. Shower-bath pluvbano. Showy luksa. Shred peco, dispeco. Shrewd sagaca. Shrewdness sagaceco. Shriek kriegi. Shriek (of the wind) mugxi. Shrill sibla. Shrink malpliigxi. Shrivel up sulkigxi. Shrimp markankreto. Shroud mortkitelo. Shroud kasxi, protekti. Shrub arbeto. Shrug altigi. Shudder ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... of the jackal (Canis aureus) means simply 'yellow dog,' and not a few of that animal's characteristics are seen in his domesticated representative. For the plebeian cur is shrewd, active, and hardy, and far better equipped for the real struggle of life than any ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... tongue, and in his own head, Mr Meagles was a clear, shrewd, persevering man. When he had 'worked round,' as he called it, to Paris in his pilgrimage, and had wholly failed in it so far, he was not disheartened. 'The nearer to England I follow him, you see, Mother,' argued Mr Meagles, 'the nearer I am likely to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... That Frank was shrewd Harry knew, and yet Merriwell sometimes seemed to deliberately deceive himself by thinking that certain fellows were honest when he should have known better. It seemed the hardest thing in the world for Frank to be convinced that any fellow was thoroughly bad, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... "Upon my credit, a shrewd observation! Ah, Dionysius, merit is overlooked in every church, and in every profession; or perhaps—hem!—ehem!—perhaps some of your reverend friends might be higher up! I mean nobody; but if ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... party of Algonquins were menaced under the very guns of Quebec by the Iroquois, who were driven off, but not captured, by a posse of French troops. In the following year Monseigneur l'Eveque de Petree, arrived at Quebec, to preside over the Catholic Church. Francois de Petree, a shrewd, energetic, learned prelate, was not, however, appointed to the See of Quebec, by "Notre Saint Pere le Pape Clement X," as he himself tells us, until the 1st October, 1664. In 1663 he established the Seminary of Quebec, and united it with that of the du Bac, in Paris, in 1676. ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... towardly college. It were a gracious deed if they were tried and purged and restored unto their mother from whence they came, if they be worthy to come thither again. We were clear without blot or suspicion till they came, and some of them, as Master Dean hath known a long time, hath had a shrewd name.—Dr. London to ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... just now that both political parties in the House of Commons are happy in the possession of almost model Whips. As was said by a shrewd observer, no one looking at Mr. Marjoribanks or Mr. Akers-Douglas as they lounge about the Lobby "would suppose they could say 'Bo!' to a goose." The goose, however, would do well not to push the experiment of forbearance too far. All ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... including the proceedings at Chicago, shows that the separatist section is a very small one either in Ireland or in America, and that it has become sensibly smaller since, and in consequence of, the proposed concession of a limited statutory constitution. The Irish are quite shrewd enough to know that Separation, if it were attainable—and they are well aware that it is not—would do no good to their markets; and to that knowledge, as well as to many other internal considerations, we may confidently look for the victory of strong centripetal over very weak ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... time, after the Kaboutermanneken's visits had become events of such rarity, there lived a worthy wood-chopper, who had a daughter named Catherine; a pretty little maiden of sixteen, and yet the wisest woman in the kingdom of Kaboutermannekensburg. Shrewd as she was, she had yet the best, the kindest, and the most guileless heart in the world; and many a sick man, troubled woman, and grieved child had cause to bless her and her wisdom. One winter, when labor was cheap and bread expensive, the wood-chopper, whose name was Peter Kurtz, chopped ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... be difficult to guess the detective's thoughts. Was this conviction shaken by Phileas Fogg's return, or did he still regard him as an exceedingly shrewd rascal, who, his journey round the world completed, would think himself absolutely safe in England? Perhaps Fix's opinion of Phileas Fogg was somewhat modified; but he was nevertheless resolved to do his duty, and ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... Calamus means?—because of me or in spite of me, is that what it means? I have said no, but no does not satisfy him. [There is, however, no record from Symonds's side of any letter by Whitman to Symonds in this sense up to this date.] But read this letter—read the whole of it: it is very shrewd, very cute, in deadliest earnest: it drives me hard, almost compels me—it is urgent, persistent: he sort of stands in the road and says 'I won't move till you answer my question.' You see, this is an old letter—sixteen years ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... cried Mr. Congreve, pausing before her, with a puzzled wonder in his shrewd eyes. "Do you honestly so little realize what Roger's nature is, or how much the boy loves you, and how he is waiting to hear ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... with suspicion of the Medici; though Francois I. always repelled it. Consequently, the Gondi, Strozzi, Ruggieri, Sardini, etc.,—in short, all those who were called distinctively "the Italians,"—were compelled to employ greater resources of mind, shrewd policy, and courage, to maintain themselves at court against the weight of ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other—"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... even when he only danced it in the village among the contadini, but to-day the admiring eyes of his padrona were upon him. He knew how she loved the tarantella. He knew, too, that she wanted the padrone, her husband, to love it as she did. Gaspare was very shrewd to read a woman's thoughts so long as her love ran in them. Though but eighteen, he was a man in certain knowledge. He understood, almost unconsciously, a good deal of what Hermione was feeling as she watched, and he put his whole ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... ordered by the "management." This impression was unlikely to be contradicted, because Nick had wanted her to have the flowers, not to get the credit for giving them. But Theodora Dene, who was experienced and shrewd in matters of the heart, wondered about the poppies. She made no mention of them, however, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the Duke of St. James was perfectly satisfied with existence, and conscious that he was himself, of that existence, the most distinguished ornament. In fact, he was a sublime coxcomb; one of those rare characters whose finished manner and shrewd sense combined prevent their conceit from being contemptible. After many consultations it was determined between the aunt and uncle that it would be most prudent to affect a total non-interference with their nephew's affairs, and in the meantime to trust to the goodness of Providence ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Tuileries, when the theatres were closed in consequence of some religious festival. That amiable abbe, who had written several comedies in secret, had very poor health and a very small body; he was all wit and gracefulness, famous for his shrewd repartees which, although very cutting, never offended anyone. It was impossible for him to have any enemies, for his criticism only grazed the skin and never wounded deeply. One day, as he was returning from Versailles, I asked him ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... looked at 'em pretty shrewd and sez: "When I git home I shan't pay no forty cents a pound for cinnamon. I can tell 'em I've seen the trees and I know it ort to be cheaper." Sez he, "I could scrape off a pound or two with my jack-knife if we could ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... therefore, was the identification of Challis Wrandall by his "beautiful wife," and the sensational manner in which it had been brought about. With considerable interest she noted the hour that these despatches had been received from "special correspondents," and wondered where the shrewd, lynx-eyed reporters napped while she was at the inn. All of the despatches were timed three o'clock and each paper characterised its issue as an "Extra," with Challis Wrandall's name in huge type across as many columns as the ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... evidently suspecting some surgical or legal significance in the machinery displayed, and her son finding some trouble in making her understand what it meant. But finally we got the tall, personable sergeant, with his frank, shrewd, sensible face, to put himself between the two, in the attitude as of a guardian angel; the camera was nimbly adjusted, and lo! ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... was a novice in dealing with business men, but he saw that she was shrewd and practical, and, finding her talent valuable, meant to make the most ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... personal vanity. He was a man absorbed in ideas, indifferent to appearances. He lived in the opportunities of his heart and mind to help others; although he had been one of the most tried of men, he had never spared himself to help others. He never lost faith in anyone. There were many shrewd enough to realise this characteristic in him, who would put a finger on his heart and draw out of him all he had ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... avant couriers are bright, active 'hustlers,' who make the native nabobs gasp at their breezy ways, but, all the same, these nabobs are pretty shrewd persons and know ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... question began and has always gone hand in hand with the denial of the reality of prophetic inspiration. In the view of rationalists prophecy is no revelation of the future through the illumination of the Holy Spirit. It is only anticipation and shrewd conjecture of the future from the course of the present. The possibility of prophecy, therefore, is limited by the possibility of human foresight. Reasoning from this false position, the critic first assumes that Isaiah cannot ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... whose professional class is followed by that of the small tradesmen, costermongers, and other people of the lower orders. This, and the clearness of detail upon London commerce, may strengthen the general impression that the description comes rather from a shrewd, clear-headed, and successful merchant than from a man ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... had run into the midst of the school of whales. Captain Rogers being called by Mr. Robbins, took a look around the sea-line, cast a shrewd look at the heavens, went and squinted at the glass, and then ordered the canvas reefed down and all hands to breakfast. The prospect, of both weather and whales, was ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... Gerald, parted with it again to Richard Maijor, the son of the mayor of Southampton. This was in 1638, and for some time the lodge at Hursley was lent to Mr. Kingswell, Mr. Maijor's father-in-law, who died there in 1639, after which time Mr. Maijor took up his abode there. He seems to have been a shrewd, active man, and a staunch Protestant, for when there was a desire to lease out Cranbury, he, as Lord of the Manor, stipulated that it should be let only to a Protestant of the Church of England, not to a Papist. The neighbourhood of the Welleses at Brambridge ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... that you have been fifteen years playing for people to dance at Tivoli and you have never yet found out how Socquard cooks his wine,—you who are so shrewd!" said his daughter; "and yet you know very well that if we had the secret we should soon get as rich ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... fell to bantering, he could turn the fag-end of another man's nothing to good account in a way so shrewd that not even Master Ben Jonson could better him—and Master Ben Jonson set up for a wit. But Master Shakspere came about as quickly as an English man-of-war, dodged here and there on a breath of wind, and seemed ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... but that as matters stood he would sever the long connection. It seemed a pity, later, that he did this, but the break was bound to come. Clemens was not a business man, and Bliss was not a philanthropist. He was, in fact, a shrewd, capable publisher, who made as good a contract as he could; yet he was square in his dealings, and the contract which Clemens held most bitterly against him—that of 'Roughing It'—had been made in good faith ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... much about your sister, young fellow," he said. "Internal politics over here may not interest her a cent, but she's crazy about America as a country, and she's shrewd enough to see things coming that a great many of you over here aren't looking for. Anyway, she came bang up against me in a little scheme I had on the night before I left Europe, and somewhere about her she's got concealed a document ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are cut down to the quick, it is a shrewd sign that the man is a mechanic, to whom long nails would be troublesome, or that he gets his bread by fiddling; and if they are longer than his fingers ends, and encircled with a black rim, it foretells he has been laboriously ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 51.] Todd at once made the court proceed to business. On its recommendation he granted licenses to trade to men of assured loyalty. He also issued a proclamation in reference to new settlers taking up lands. Being a shrewd man, he clearly foresaw the ruin that was sure to arise from the new Virginia land laws as applied to Kentucky, and he feared the inrush of a horde of speculators, who would buy land with no immediate intention of settling thereon. Besides, the land was so fertile in the river ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... with his great, smooth, laughing face; his gray eye, shrewd as a chicken hawk's; his diamond ring, his voice like a bugle call, his prince's air, his plump and active roll of money, his clarion call to friend and comrade—oh, what a king of men he was! How he ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... understood that the borrower must pay a bonus besides to secure a loan, which, added to the legal interest, gave him a very handsome consideration for the use of his spare funds. So his money rapidly increased, doubling every five or six years through his shrewd mode of management, and every year he grew more economical. His wife had died ten years before. She had worked hard for very poor pay, for the squire's table was proverbially meager, and her bills for dress, judging from her appearance, ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... to vote for equal rights for women. At other polls I saw colored men, once slaves, electioneering and voting against the rights of women. When remonstrated with, one said: "We want the women at home cooking our dinners." A shrewd colored woman asked whether they had provided any dinner to cook, and added that most of the colored women there had to earn their dinner as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... surveyed by Lowell in his happiest manner, as a satirist, in that clever production, by a wonderful Quiz, A Fable for Critics, "Set forth in October, the 31st day, in the year '48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway." For some time the authorship remained a secret, though there were many shrewd guesses as to the paternity of the biting shafts of wit and delicately baited hooks. It was written mainly for the author's own amusement, and with no thought of publication. Daily instalments of the poem were sent off, as soon as written, to a friend of the poet, Mr. Charles F. Briggs, of New ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... been forbidden to coin money, to maintain armies, and to tax their subjects, and the powers of the king's judges had been extended over all the realm. But the task of consolidating France was reserved for the son of Charles VII, the shrewd ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... account of any exasperation in consequence of such silly devices as the threatening letter said to have been put in Catharine's bed-room, warning her that if she did not drive the papists from about her, "she and her L'Aubespine" (secretary of state) would feel the dagger.[344] She was too shrewd not to know that a Roman Catholic was more likely to have penned it than ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... the tribunate. Toward both these movements the attitude of Curio is puzzling. He reports to Cicero[123] that Clodius's main object in running for the tribunate is to repeal the legislation of Caesar. It is strange that a man who had been in the counsels of Clodius, and was so shrewd on other occasions in interpreting political motives, can have been so deceived. We can hardly believe that he was double-faced toward Cicero. We must conclude, I think, that his strong dislike for Caesar's policy and political methods colored his view of ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... Angut was shrewd also and profound of thought, insomuch that, mentally, he stood high above his kinsfolk. He seemed to see through his fellows as if their bosoms and brains had been made of glass, and all their thoughts visible. Ujarak knew this also, and did not like it. But no one suffered because of Angut's superior ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... was quite as shrewd a psychologist as bacteriologist," pursued Craig impressively. "He calculated the moral effect of the letter, then of Buster's illness, and finally of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... long before shrewd people began to see that this fine humor, with its home-thrusts, was not in reality written by a country bumpkin. Through the rough dialect and homely way of stating the case, there shone the fine intellect of a cultivated and skillful writer. ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... anything about her to have made Mrs. Fulsom think she was rich," Mrs. Whittle whispered to Mrs. Daggett, who made an unexpectedly shrewd retort: "I can see. She don't look as if she cared what anybody thought of her clothes; as if she had so much ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... and acclamations were not addressed to them, but only to General Bonaparte, the conqueror of Lodi and Arcola, the hero of the pyramids, the "savior of society," who, on the 18th Brumaire, had rescued France from the terrorists. Both consuls were shrewd enough to draw a lesson from this enthusiasm of the people, and willingly to fall back into the shade rather than to be forced into it. The Tuileries had been appointed for the residence of the three consuls, but the next day after their triumphal ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... English public opinion as knows anything of the matter, to have been the best Indian public servant that the present generation has produced. In addition, or, as perhaps some would say, in spite of possessing real literary genius, he proved himself a most wise, shrewd, and capable administrator. I do not believe he made a single mistake during his whole career. At all events, I never heard of his having done so; and a slip is scarcely made in India without the fact being duly recorded. ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... almost scornful optimism which, in the matter of ourselves, cannot take peril or even decadence seriously, reached by far its highest and healthiest form in the sense that we were watched over by one so thoroughly English in her silence and self-control, in her shrewd trustfulness and her brilliant inaction. Over and above those sublime laws of labour and pity by which she ordered her life, there are a very large number of minor intellectual matters in which we might learn a lesson from the Queen. There is one especially which ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... saw keenly that the new force which had overthrown them was a force which threatened to overthrow the monarchy itself. It was the people which in its religious or its political guise was the assailant of both. And as their foe was the same, so James argued with the shrewd short-sightedness of his race, their cause was the same. "No bishop," ran his famous adage, "no king!" To restore the episcopate was from this moment his steady policy. But its actual restoration only followed on the failure of a long attempt to bring the Assembly ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... "Explainer" would result in cleaner back yards and less illness and, better than all else, a more friendly feeling between the officials and those they honestly wish to help; for I do not think there is often justification for such remarks as were made to me by a shrewd California countryman when I was showing him about in the traveling exhibit, the sanitation car: "Oh, this is all to get a job. It's another form of graft—to get ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... mission might not prove so easy of attainment as they had been led to believe. As for Phaulkon, he had adroitly deceived the Jesuits from the first, and made all parties instruments to promote his own shrewd and secret plans. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... he said nothing. He had been doing a lot of thinking and had come to the conclusion that it was better to postpone his fate by being rescued with Frank and Jack, if possible; for he had a pretty shrewd idea that Lord Hastings was ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... had eaten, the farmer, who appeared to be a jovial, warm-hearted, humorous, and withal a shrewd old man, passed several hours in conversation with his guest, who seemed to be very ill at ease, both in body and mind; yet, as if desirous of pleasing his entertainer, he replied courteously and agreeably to whatever was said to him. Finally, he pleaded fatigue and illness ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... summons was joyful to Emily, it was a surprise and an unpleasant one to Mrs. Hazleton. Not that she wished to keep her young guest with her long; for she was too keen and shrewd not to perceive that Emily would not be worked upon so easily as she had imagined; and that under her very youthfulness there was a strength of character which must render one part of the plans against her certainly abortive. But Mrs. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... father about the shooting and what he had noted on the farms. Foster thought her cleverer than the others, but it was obvious that her interest was not forced. She understood agriculture and her remarks were singularly shrewd. ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... by way of being a lady, you know; she lives in a little house in the city with one maid, and I believe she rubs her own tables. I am sure she goes about in omnibuses, though she has lots of money; and Marilda is so fond of her, and so like her, only not so clever and shrewd.' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... here, women far more astute and shrewd than Amelie; they will not fail to discover who you are, where you are, where you come from, and all that you are doing. You have counted upon your incognito, I see, but you are one of those women for whom an incognito is out of the question. You will meet Angouleme at every turn. There ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Deslauriers' display of reserve, and in order to make him a sort of reparation, he told the other next day how he had lost the fifteen thousand francs without mentioning that these fifteen thousand francs had been originally intended for him. The advocate, nevertheless, had a shrewd suspicion of the truth; and this misadventure, which justified, in his own mind, his prejudices against Arnoux, entirely disarmed his rancour; and he did not again refer to the promise made by his friend on a ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... knowledge was a tendency to universal skepticism. A spirit of utter indifference to truth and righteousness was the prevailing spirit of Athenian society. That spirit is strikingly exhibited in the speech of Callicles, "the shrewd man of the world," in "Gorgias" (Sec.85, 86). Is this new to our ears?" My dear Socrates, you talk of law. Now the laws, in my judgment, are just the work of the weakest and most numerous; in framing them they never thought ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... an eminently "practical man," who, being well off, travelled over the world for pleasure. His party consisted of himself, his daughter Pet, and his daughter's servant called Tatty-coram. A jolly man was Mr. Meagles; but clear-headed, shrewd, and persevering. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... sell—lands, castles, forests, pastures, timber—all but one lonely castle in the desolate woods, where she dwelt among her own people, with the dying folk thronging round her gates and in her halls. Good bargains Fergus made also, for he was a shrewd and loyal steward, and the saints must have touched the hearts of the English merchants, so that they gave good prices for all, or perhaps they did not realize the dire distress that prevailed in Ireland. However that may ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... an ancient Venetian costume, looking on at the ceremony of the Bucentaur. The Frenchman, who plainly discerned that some strange and painful mystery stood between the Prince and the Duchess, was racking his brain with shrewd conjecture to discover what ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... as for the poor little boy, who is a heavy burthen on his mind. He has lived in such a state of shrewd distrust that he has no power of confidence, and his complications for making all the boy's guardians check one another till we come to a dead lock, and to make provision for Isabel out of Menteith's reach, are enough to distract the brain of ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... picturesque about him—he was too thoroughly commonplace. His ways of living were those of a well-to-do man. Although he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that he had to look to in the future, the major always kept two years' pay untouched, and never spent his allowances, like some shrewd old men of business with whom cautious prudence has almost become a mania. He was so little of a gambler that if, when in company, some one was wanted to cut in or to take a bet at ecarte, he usually fixed his eyes on his boots; but though he did not allow himself any extravagances, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... him with me at Paris?" I remarked, in wonder at this strange revelation. "He certainly never struck me as an assassin. He was a shrewd man—a swindler, no doubt, but his humorous bearing and his good-nature were entirely opposed to the belief that his was a ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... not a fanciful woman, was sometimes aware of a sixth sense enabling her to detect the faintest vibrations of her son's impulses. She was too shrewd to fancy herself the one mother in possession of this faculty, but she permitted herself to think that few could exercise it more discreetly. If she could not help overhearing Alan's thoughts, she had the courage to keep her discoveries ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the way along a plain trail that seemed to be the easiest route up to the enclosure. Three times out of four a stranger, prowling around with meagre light to guide him, would be apt to follow that beaten track; and this was evidently what the shrewd Obed was ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... tell you that? Well, she's pretty shrewd. It's quite likely, Betty, quite likely. It seems to me you are not so quick witted ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... listened without further question, but his shrewd grey eyes rested suspiciously on Barney when he had ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... hand with the silk was convincing. I turned from her once again, and rejoined the shrewd men whose object it was to fasten the ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... the first commander that made any stand against the inroad of the Moslems. He was about forty years of age; hardy, prompt, and sagacious; and had all the Gothic nobles been equally vigilant and shrewd in their defence, the banner of Islam would never have ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... in the sunless, sweltering heat, reflected on these things. Of course she did not know all the story, but most of it had come under her observation in one way or other, and being shrewd by nature, she could guess the rest, for she who was companionless had much time for reflection and for guessing. She sympathised with her father in his ideas, understanding vaguely that there was something large and noble about ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... man. The unformed and pliable novice, usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty, is subjected to "a skillful, energetic and unremitting assault upon personal independence." Every device that a shrewd and powerful intellect could conceive of is employed to break up the personal will. "The Jesuit scheme prescribes the gait, the way to hold the hands, to incline the head, to direct the eyes, to hold ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... perceiving what was in reality more of a Thing than a person, being an unfortunate child of about nine years of age, otherwise well formed, but with a weak and hanging head enlarged very much beyond its normal size and yet with a pair of shrewd eyes and a smiling mouth, told upon his nerves. He started, leant too heavily on the bracket, and in a second the lighted lamp, as yet without a chimney, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Malatesta of Rimini, to whom he had prophesied the worst that a tyrant can imagine, namely, death in exile and in the most grievous poverty. Tiberto was a man of intelligence, who was supposed to give his answers less according to any methodical chiromancy than by means of his shrewd knowledge of mankind; and his high culture won for him the respect of those scholars who thought little of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt |
